‘Silicon Beach’: Tech boom hits

By RYAN NAKASHIMA and MICHAEL LIEDTKE

In this Aug. 12, 2014 photo, employees of Rivalry Games work on their computers at technology incubator MuckerLab, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo) LOS ANGELES -- So long . These days entrepreneurs and engineers are flocking to a place better known for wave surfing than Web surfing. Amid the palm trees and purple sunsets of the Southern California coastline, techies have built "Silicon Beach." In the past few years , Microsoft, , and YouTube have opened offices on the west side of Los Angeles from Santa Monica south to Venice and Playa del Rey. They are joined by hundreds of startups including , Demand Media and , which nixed a $3 billion takeover offer from Facebook. Major players like The Walt Disney Co. and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. have launched startup accelerators to help local tech entrepreneurs. The city of Los Angeles even hired its first chief technology officer, former Qualcomm executive Peter Marx, earlier this year.

In this July 1, 2014 photo, Dollar Shave Club CEO and co-founder Michael Dubin poses for photos at the company's headquarters in Venice, Calif. (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo) "Historically, Silicon Valley has been the center of gravity for tech and startups but I think more and more, these types of companies can be built anywhere," says Erik Rannala, who moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles with his entrepreneurial partner William Hsu several years ago. Rannala and Hsu oversee MuckerLab, a technology incubator in Santa Monica, California, that has invested in 45 startups such as flower marketplace BloomNation and online tuxedo rental outfit The Black Tux. Many of the ideas for the companies were hatched in MuckerLab's concrete-walled space, which is covered with white boards and sticky tabs. The vibe is eclectic. No office-park chic here. Graffiti murals mix with coffee shops, foodie scenes, and boutiques. Companies allocate ample space for bikes and surfboards so employees can hit the beach after work. software maker Epoxy TV, founded by Juan Bruce and Jason Ahmad, is located in a Venice complex formerly owned by the late actor Dennis Hopper. They still get his mail. One of Hopper's sculptures adorns the yard and inside, there's a staircase to nowhere designed by renowned Los Angeles architect Frank Gehry. The Venice scene also has helped online razor service Dollar Shave Club recruit employees, according to founder and Philadelphia native Michael Dubin. "It's very different to be at the heart of Venice than to be in the heart of Mountain View," says Epoxy TV's Ahmad. "Culturally it's just a vastly different place." What's happening here is part of a growing movement of U.S. cities seeking to duplicate the formula that turned northern California's Silicon Valley, slightly south of San Francisco, into a mecca of society-shifting innovation and immense wealth. Cupertino-based Apple, Mountain View's Google and Menlo Park-based Facebook. collectively have created more than $1 trillion in shareholder wealth while routinely paying employees six-figure salaries, generous benefits and stock options that can generate multimillion-dollar windfalls.

In this July 1, 2014 photo, Jason Ahmad, top, Epoxy TV chief product officer and co-founder, and Juan Bruce, right, CEO and co-founder, pose for photos at the headquarters of the company, in a Venice, Calif. complex formerly occupied by the late actor Dennis Hopper (Jae C. Hong/AP Photo) All the prosperity has caused the cost of living in Silicon Valley to soar. It's nearly impossibl